Jack spoke with a quiet air that evidently had its effect on the nervous little man pecking away at the machine with two fat fingers and he moved his chair to one side a little so as to make room, but apparently unwilling to believe that he could be taught anything.
Jack shifted the paper a line or two and then, standing over the machine, set to work, operating rapidly and writing as he thought.
He not only used all his fingers but did the spacing with his thumbs and wrote so rapidly that Dick thought he was copying and not writing off-hand.
What he wrote was a brief account of the finding of the rubber bag containing the missing cash box near the bridge at the upper station, not mentioning himself by name, however, nor even saying that the property had been found by one of the Hilltop boys.
When he had finished the editor looked at the paper and muttered:
“H’m! not an error! Well, you are certainly an expert operator and have taught me something but I could never write like that. Force of habit, I suppose.”
“Where did you ever learn to use a typewriter, Jack?” asked Dick in admiration. “Why, you show me some new accomplishment every day.”
“Oh, I have used one for some time. I have done work for the lawyers in our town. I have made a good deal of money that way.”
“He gets along faster with all his fingers than you do, playing a sort of crazy jig with your two first fingers, Mr. Brooke,” laughed Dick, uproariously. “I have seen other fellows play the machine like that and thought it was the only way, but now I see that it is not.”
“You have put it very concisely,” said the editor. “By the way, who was the person who found the money?”